Lifestyle entrepreneur Martha Stewart has her sights set on turning her company into the biggest homewares brand in Asia.

"We’re very interested in international expansion for our products now," she said, speaking at the EY World Entrepreneur of The Year event in Monte Carlo on Friday. "We're a bit late but we're bringing our merchandise to these countries."

The Martha Stewart brand has already stretched far beyond the US, she said. “I’m on television in 88 countries. When I walk down the streets in Bangkok, they recognise me from the TV. Even in remote parts of China, they have TVs, they know me.”

Ms Stewart has already taken the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia brand to Japan through a long-standing distribution deal with Seiyu department stores. “We now have a thriving business there,” she said.

In order to appeal to Japanese consumers, Ms Stewart had to retrofit her products to the needs of the market. “We had to use slightly different configurations,” she explained. “The washing machines there are tiny, so our bath towels have to be tiny. We had to adapt our designs to fit the lifestyle.”

Martha Stewart will use this same strategy to break into the lucrative Chinese market. The middle class in China has now topped 300m people: “There has been an exodus from the countryside into the cities,” said Ms Stewart. “And they all need home products.”

Ms Stewart hinted at a possible joint venture with Asian e-commerce giant Alibaba, which could accelerate her entry into China. “I met with Jack Ma [chairman of Alibaba],” she said. “We had such an interesting conversation. He’s a brilliant and future-thinking person, and he services 100m people there.”

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s manufacturing base is based in Asia, she added, so selling to the domestic market is a natural step.

“Our designers are there anyway, so they have ample opportunity to study the market,” she said. “It doesn’t involve a huge expenditure for us to do that, so we are now concentrating on distributing our stuff there.”

“We’re already studying how people are living in China,” she continued. “Do they have stoves that could accommodate the kind of pots and pans we think people should have? If they don’t have the stoves, should they have the stoves? Should we be applying to the appliance manufacturers so they can have fabulous kitchens?”

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia was founded in 1996, and currently distributes 8,500 products worldwide. Ms Stewart’s empire also spans magazines, books, TV and a daily radio show, alongside her e-commerce site and lifestyle apps. According to the firm, the brand reaches 100m consumers every month.

Ms Stewart is America’s leading lifestyle darling. Even when she was jailed for insider trading in 2004, her company’s share price rose considerably during her five-month term, as investors banked on a comeback. However, pundits now believe that the company’s resurgence will be short-lived, after revenues at the company shrank 18pc last year to $160m.

Ms Stewart is a keynote speaker at the 14th annual EY World Entrepreneur of the Year, which takes place in Monaco this week. Other speakers include former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, and Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder of micro-financing venture Grameen Bank.

The event has attracted more than 1,000 delegates. This year’s winner will be announced at a glittering ceremony on Saturday night. James Lambert, the chairman and co-founder of R&R Ice Cream, Europe’s largest own-label ice cream manufacturer, is representing the UK.